18 September 2012

Book Review: The Signal and the Noise

In my column over at the Breakthrough Institute I have a review of Nate Silver's (@fiverthirtyeight) new book, The Signal and the Noise. Here is how it starts out:

Nate Silver is a Wunderkind. Not yet 35, Silver has already developed
the leading statistical tool for assessing prospective professional
baseball players, been consulted by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign
to help assess the implications of opinion polls for the election’s
outcome, writes a widely read New York Times blog and in 2009 was named by Time magazine
as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way,
and apparently in his spare time, Silver made more than $400,000 playing
professional poker (before losing about a third of it and moving on).
Silver’s initial foray into professional poker turned a $100 initial
stake into $15,000, which was apparently enough to convince Silver to
quit his day job, which has been to the benefit of the rest of us.
Silver adds to this impressive list of accomplishments with the
publication next week of his first book The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail – But Some Don't (Penguin USA).

This generally well-researched and ambitious book covers a lot of
ground. It describes Silver’s evolution as a Fox (to use Philip
Tetlock’s terminology favored by Silver) who is “tolerant of nuance,
uncertainty, complexity, and dissenting opinion.” Silver discusses
prediction in sports, geosciences, economics, politics and health. He
clearly has done lots of reading in the academic literature. In most of
these chapters he has tracked down and spoken to the characters that
show up in the book -- a nice touch for a work that combines analysis
with a bit of reporting. I’m not one of those characters, but I did
engage in a long phone conversation with Silver while he was researching
the book to discuss various aspects of prediction. In our discussion, I
was impressed by his thoroughness and attention to detail, and have
been looking forward to the final product.